About the play

Described by one 5-star reviewer as being "A powerful and poetic piece of writing which is a relevant song for our society today". The play is written by award-winning critically acclaimed Writer, Director and Actor Alfie James and features a cast including Kitty Whitley, Ben Kinsman and Atarah.

The story of the play

The play was originally written as part of a free educational package with the hope of raising awareness of and to create opportunities to talk openly about gang-knife crime and hate crime towards members of the LGBTQ community. Both have seen an alarming increase in statistics in the past few years. Alfie James strongly believes that performance techniques can be used as a powerful tool in bringing about positive social change. Due to Covid, the cast weren’t able to perform the play live which put a spanner in the works. Refusing to be disheartened, they then set about creating an audio play via Zoom from their own living rooms. None of us had done anything like it before and what then proceeded was a wonderful four-month journey of learning about the ins and outs of developing an audio play, learning how to use Zoom and overcoming challenges of creating sound effects, adapting the dialogue for a radio play and relying upon our voices as our only acting device. It was a great learning experience.

The audio play went live, and we quickly received a string of positive reviews, and it was hailed as a success by audience members for its realism, sensitivity, People found the characters relatable and seemed to connect with the story. We were then blown away when we received Arts Council Funding to develop the piece into a stage play and support from both Stonewall and The Southwark Well-being Hub to further develop our educational materials. After four six extensive months of rehearsals and workshops, we are delighted to be performing My boy Danny live for the first time at the highly regarded Lion and Unicorn Theatre, London.